Opinions and Debates

You may be entitled to your opinion, but you're not entitled to mine. There's no point in debating unless it's to seek common ground.

And while entitlement to an opinion may be comforting, is it satisfying?

Once we accept that we are too stupid to understand even if everything made sense, which it doesn't, we realize that WE ALL HAVE A POINT. And we are all also missing things.

If you use your point to eliminate, negate or destroy my point, you miss mine. And my point is worth hearing with an open mind and heart, because it is hard won and has grown and matured from simpler thinking that sounds a lot like most of the "debating" I see go by my feeds. You are at least as bright as me, so I have confidence that you can unclench your grip on what you already know and accept, and try to see things as I see for a time, just for the fun of it, just to see what's worth incorporating. It's a wonder, what I see. It's curious and dangerous, frustrating and fantastic, and it's just as real as what you've accepted.

If I hear your point but you don't hear mine, and I identify the common ground, you will feel like you've won, when really, I have taken in some information but you have lost out altogether. That's not a good use of either of our time and energy in the world.

My goal, instead, is that we learn to allow each others' version of reality to exist in respect for the person that each of us is. We allow the other reality to exist, just as real, inhabiting the same 3 dimensional space. We learn to allow this, without insisting that one is correct and one is incorrect, that only one version represents the True Reality. We allow the possibility that I may be wrong, you may be wrong, and in all likelihood we are both a little bit right and colossally wrong, because humans are stupid even at our smartest. And this place is really complicated.

So we can ask, do I LOVE the reality that I accept as real? Do I choose the view I hold, is it what I want for myself and the world? If you could wish the impossible, would you want the world to be this way?

Then, it becomes a choice. What reality am I working towards? How can I make minute corrections in my thinking, living, being, relationships, moments, choices, viewpoints, information seeking, experiencing, etc. that start to line up my actual reality with the reality of my wishes?

And then, we have a common seeking. Where is the reality I'm creating overlapping with the reality that you want to be real?

Together, we can wish the impossible. Where two or three are gathered, there lies a reality with some strength.

The existing physical and social conditions of Earth represent a fairly common experience, where many humans all agree about what reality is like.

The rest of our experience, outside the common experience, is our own special blend of reality. Trying to make other people see it, agree with it, and change their reality to ours, is the height of arrogance and narcissism. Instead we should seek what we love from what they see, and incorporate it into our reality. In this way, we add strength to that shared wish, we give it reality, by wishing for it, by acting towards it. We bring it forth. Slowly, like building a mountain with teaspoons, maybe. But maybe not. The length of time doesn't matter, if we care about the future 7 generations. We can pass our reality along, and let it evolve into something even better as it strengthens over time.

We can wish our reality into a future that is more beautiful, hopeful, fair, loving, and happy. We have the technical ability and the resources. We've tied ourselves into these systems that choke the true abundance of what we've built in the most shameful ways possible.

Believing in the reality you want, as possible, is an act of bravery. It is playing traitor to the systems that hold you up, that give you a sense of control and security in the world. It is letting go of the ropes of being right and understanding what the fuck is going on. Trust me, we have no idea.

It makes living a different kind of experience. It's easier to believe in the reality we're presented by the people we trust, who hold us up. Together, we give that reality more strength and we feel more insulated. Maybe we are. And, if that reality isn't the one I'd choose, it hurts my soul, regardless of whether we have a soul.

I know this in my bones, in my veins, in the painful joints and inflamed points, in my pressurized head, in my ears (Happy), in my skin and fingers and pouring through. My reality is that we can give reality to our wishes, in spoonfuls and grains, just by believing they are possible, just by acting as though they are likely, and I can help make them happen in my little small acts. If that's not true, if that's not real, to someone else's reality, I have both the humility and pride to say, I'm probably wrong somehow, but you are no more right than me, you're just looking at the elephant from a different perspective and seeing something different. I am looking her in the eyes.

So trust me or don't, these choices are our own to make.

But don't ask me to debate you. I've already won. I hope you do, too.


(musical accompaniment from Happy Rhodes https://youtu.be/ZkqZsWLAiRA)